Dissertations are worth so much, if you’re in your final year of the UK University, it’s worth a good chunk. Sometimes even 50, something even 100 of your final year mark. So, it is really important that you’re taking the time to not just rush it at the last minute, but actually take time to make sure that all the sections are done really well.
Dissertation Structure
a) Title page
- Includes your Title
- Your name and the current year
- The word count
- Also look for any other details that the UK University looks for, you might need to include them in this. Which could also be your student ID number
- Sometimes the University requires different things at the front of your title page. So make sure that you’re checking the requirements of your University so that, it matches what is actually on your title page because. These are things that will lose you marks and other things little things, that mean that you won’t get a first.
b) Contents Page
This includes all the chapters and the sub-chapters of your dissertation.
- We will have the ‘Declaration’
- Abstract
- Introduction, materials, and methods
- Results, discussion, and conclusion
- Then comes the supplementary part; a list of tables, a list of figures, lists of charts, and abbreviations. These are things, that people always forget to include. But they are what is going to make your dissertation look like a PhD thesis.
- The appendix is also equally important.
Declaration
the Declaration essentially says that this is original work. I haven’t plagiarized. If you have collaborated with anyone else you should include that, like this work has been done in conjunction with this person.
Abstract
The abstract is a good 200 to 300-word summary of what you’ve done.
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Introduction
The introduction typically includes a literature review, which forms the body of your dissertation.
- Background to Thesis and Literature review – These forms like the background show that you understand the literature and the feel, that you’re working on and it’s one of the kinds of biggest parts of your dissertation and also the most challenging.
- Purpose/Research Question- Then you have a research question
- Hypothesis – This states that this is what you’re doing. So, I think if I do this thing this thing’s going to happen.
Material and Methods
this is where you’d include any experiments, that you’re doing in your analysis, your statistics, your procedure, your inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria, and so on.
Results
think of it like a little story, you’ve given your background. Then you say what the method is. You then say what the results are. Here, you would have results, sub results. This would be three headings, four headings, five headings, and so on.
Discussion & Conclusion
this is where you would say you’d go into more depth. So, your methods and your results are typically just like descriptive. Then your discussion is a lot more analytical and critical and your conclusion.
List of tables, list of figures, list of charts, abbreviations, and references at the end.
Work Organisation
Methods and Materials section
Always start from this, because this is the one where you usually would have the methods already set out. It’s probably one of the first things that you start to think about. So, you can write those things down, they typically don’t tend to change that much. Once you’ve picked your participants and once you’ve picked your like research group or once you’ve picked your research group or once you’ve picked your method that tends to be quiet. It’s stable and secure and that doesn’t change that so much. So, you can start writing your methods of materials as soon as possible.
Literature review
this is something that you kind of will do in conjunction, whilst you’re doing your research and you’re looking at your methods and you’re trying to get some results. You can also obviously read some papers and gather those papers you might have a reading list. Your written down sources, what the limitations are, what’s missing from their research, and the critical discussion. When you put all these into a literature review, you’re writing your methods.
Results
Put your results into charts, graphs, and tables and start compiling them. If it’s a survey, start making it look nice and think about how you want to present it. Everything that reflects in the results is reflected in the literature, and vice versa.
Conclusion
- How are you concluding this research?
- What is it that you’ve found?
- What are the takeaway messages?
- What are the limitations like, what has happened, and your research?
Abstract
This is the last thing of the main chapters. That is essentially a summary of everything.
- What your research aims at?
- What is the hypothesis?
- What the missing Gap in the literature is and then the methods?
- What approach you’re taking to overcome that Gap?
- Then your results and the conclusion.
- Future implications and directions.
- This is the last thing you do.
Conclusion
This is the overall structure, so make sure you have a starting point.
Digi Assignment guides you in creating a beautiful structure from start to finish with an easily understandable framework.
I’ve often heard students struggle with the literature review, so I appreciate how you’ve explained it as the foundation for the entire dissertation. It’s a great reminder of how critical it is to connect past research to your own work.
This guide does a great job of breaking down the different sections of a dissertation, especially for students in the UK. One thing I’ve found helpful when writing is focusing on a clear, concise research question early on—everything else seems to fall into place once that’s nailed down.